


Making it Right

by Meew3



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: AU world, Child Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mention of violent death, Minor Character Death, Past Child Abuse, ghost au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27718612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meew3/pseuds/Meew3
Summary: Seto Kaiba is used to living alone by now. It's been a couple of years since he moved out from the Kaiba estate but is still working at the company. A genius in the field, his weapon designs are highly coveted and he's the company's biggest asset. Not that he ever cared about all of that. It was a challenge placed in front of him that gave him something to do. Something... that somewhat allowed time to start moving for him. It gave him a bit of purpose.It was all going well until a boy he doesn't recognize turns up in his apartment. And together, they must find a way to right old wrongs.
Relationships: Kaiba Mokuba & Kaiba Seto
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	1. Yūrei

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an idea that was loosely inspired by an original work I made in one of my classes. Tags/warnings may change past the first chapter, but I'll include a note of warning if that happens at the start of a chapter!

It was a normal morning for Seto Kaiba. His alarm went off, he got up without hitting snooze once. Everything about this August morning was normal. The young man was dressed and prepared for the day in under ten minutes as usual. As the twenty-two year old stepped out of his room, something he stood on cracked under his foot with a crunch.

A skittle. 

Seto didn’t eat candy. He must have brought it in on his shoes or it had shaken out of one of his bags. How gross.

His moderately sized, relatively new, and nearly empty apartment he had to himself was normal. The decoration was minimalistic, furniture was sparse for he only really slept here and white was nearly the only color. Nothing hung on the walls, no photographs or art. There was a TV in the living room, not that he ever watched it. He never had time. The most he had was a bookshelf full of textbooks, manuals, and the like.

Grabbing his things for work, the blueprints for missiles, bombs, and fighter jets was normal.

Kaiba finally got rummaging around in the fridge for some eggs to cook, grabbed some spray, a pan, and even some leftover vegetables and rice to add. He set all the parts on the counter and cracked two eggs into the small bowl.

He turned behind him to throw away the eggshells and wash his hands at the sink in the island.

Even the kid sitting on one of the chairs across from him at the island was normal.

The shells spattered to the floor.

A very unflattering yelp escaped the young man as he scrambled backward only for him to hit the edge of the stove.

The young boy just stared at him midway through throwing a handful of skittles into his mouth.

Seto didn’t recognize this boy. No one else lived with him in this apartment. Could it be someone’s kid on the same floor as him? No, no one else had a kid around… ten? At least this boy looked to be around there. But how would Seto know, he never really interacted with kids that much. But he didn’t know any kids that young. Perhaps a niece or nephew of someone?

“Gods! Who are you?”

The boy cracked a grin before giggles bubbled out of him at the sight of the baffled man in front of him. His handful of candy went skittering across the floor as he put his hand over his mouth as he laughed.

Kaiba, on the other hand, scowled. 

“Listen, kid, I don’t know where you came from, but you’d better let yourself out of here real quick before I call security to track down your parents.”

But the boy continued on, paying Kaiba’s anger no mind. “Finally! You noticed me.”

Kaiba tried to take another step back but forgot about the stove. With a quick glance, he shut the burner off as the boy continued on.

“I’ve been here for like three days--”

That didn’t make any sense. If such a messy kid had been scampering around his apartment, Kaiba would have noticed. Where had this kid been hiding? In one of the cupboards stealing food like a raccoon? What--

“--and you never seemed to notice, Nii-sama!”

Everything in the room screeched to a halt as if frozen in time. Seto didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t even breathe.

_Nii-sama._

_No. No this was impossible. Moku-- no! Forget about it! Forget, forget, forget! Don’t even think about it--_

Seto merely _blinked_ and for a split second, he was a boy back in the morgue. 

Sobbing, begging to see, it couldn't be them _it couldn’t it couldn’t it couldn’t--_

He gasps, almost losing his balance, he steadied himself on the counter.

_Mokuba._

The name hadn’t crossed his mind for nearly a decade. It was easier that way. With a shuddering breath, the young man finally forced his eyes back up to look at the boy still sitting at his granite island.

Could this really be his ~~baby~~ brother? He looked older. This one’s hair was longer… but still looked to be a tangled mess. His face is a little less round, but still with the bunny cheeks. He was even looking at him with the same cheeky grin.

A sour taste filled his mouth.

How was this possible?

“Don’t--don’t you _dare_ mess with me like that,” he spat. “My brother’s gone. Has been for over a decade. How dare you…” 

At this point, he didn’t trust himself to not throttle this kid depending on what he said next.

“Wow, wow, it’s been that long? Huh! I didn’t know that. I dunno exactly what happened. I was somewhere else for a long time. It was really confusing. Kinda like a really long nap. But then I managed to track you down, _allll_ the way over to this side of Domino.” The boy finished the last of his packet of candy before crumpling it into a ball. But when he glanced around there was no trash can out in the open so he just held onto it.

“I just kind of had this _feeling_ you needed help with something. Something you needed _me_ to help you with. So here I am!” The boy flashed his teeth at the end of his declaration as if he were showing the title off as if it was a badge.

“Prove it,” Kaiba snapped. The tension slowly ebbed from Kaiba’s body as he let out a slow breath. “Prove you’re my brother.”

The boy’s face contorted as he looked to the corner of his vision scrambling for something to say.

“Uhmm… How about this? I remember the one time Dad took us to the New Years festival and let us have as many sweets as we wanted.” The grin was back as quickly as it had fallen. “I was fine! I ate the whole time we were there. But you got sick after like five sweets you’re face turned all green and--”

“Stop.”

Seto rubbed his hands over his face, letting them close over it, he left them there and just _breathed._

“I’m hallucinating. You’re not real.” 

What time had he gone to sleep last night? About 5AM right? That must be it. His habits were finally catching up to him. It must be that. He just needed to turn around, fix his breakfast, go to work, and come home right away when the day was over to sleep and remedy this issue.

Something hit his head. A light cuff, and then the wrapper of the candy fell to the tile by his shoes.

“You done talking to yourself? Or are you going to listen to me?”

Kaiba’s hands fell, and he was greeted by Mokuba’s smirk. 

“And hey, could you put some cheese on those eggs for me while you’re at it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Yūrei (幽霊) are figures in Japanese folklore analogous to the Western model of ghosts. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! As always, constructive criticism is loved. What do you think is going to happen next? Do you think Mokuba is truly there? (Also there's no update schedule it'll just happen as it happens XD)


	2. It's Bring your Brother to Work Day Apparently

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seto can't leave Mokuba by himself, which leaves him with only the option to try and keep him under control at work. But that's a lot easier said than done when you have an important meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider this a late Christmas gift if you celebrate it! Or an early New Years gift! I was getting frustrated that it was taking me so much longer to write this part and when I finally went and checked the word count I realized the reason why was because this was about double as long as the first part haha!

A few minutes later, somehow Seto found himself making two batches of eggs, one for him and—

 _What a messy eater._ As Seto finished the last of his, he watched the black-haired boy scarf down his own plate that had a disgusting amount of cheese and toppings on it.

“Wow! You really upped your cooking skills, Nii-sama!”

Kaiba slipped his laptop into its place in his messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder. 

“Don’t call me that, and hurry up, I still think you aren’t even really here.”

Though… the food did seem to be disappearing. Seto knew he couldn’t even be using objects as proof right now. The only way to check would be after he’d gotten some sleep to see if there were still two extra eggs missing.

“I can’t be late for work.”

There was a _clunk_ as the boy dropped his dishes into the skink.

“What am I supposed to call you then?”

“Kaiba.” 

The elder flicked the lights flicked off as the two exited the apartment.

“Sounds kinda boring why not—"

Seto held a hand on the collar of the puffy yellow vest the boy was wearing to steer him along the hallways so he wouldn’t get lost and lowered his voice just in case someone overheard him taking to possibly thin air.

_“No.”_

The way he said that one word held more anger than anything else thus far, and Mokuba instantly stopped in his tracks.

“Fine… but no way am I calling you Kaiba,” the boy retorted, sticking out his tongue.

* * *

No one made any comments on the way to Kaiba Corp. Nor did any of the employees. It was like Mo—the kid wasn’t even there. Did they really not see him, or did they just not care? Maybe he should go to a doctor if this didn’t go away. But he just needed to get through the day first. Gozaburo wouldn’t have believed him if he tried to call in sick after seeing him just yesterday perfectly healthy.

Curse good health, huh?

Kaiba stepped into his workspace, and thankfully he was still the first one there. There were several projects in the works with other people, but none of which he had to see for a while.

He had a few hours of peace.

“Just try to keep to yourself okay? Don’t touch anything or make a mess.”

But the kid was already wandering around the big lab peering at everything with an eye that made Seto nervous.

“Aww, don’t make me sit here all bored, I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime,” the boy said as he started to reach out to poke a model jet and only remembering Kaiba’s warning after the other clicked his tongue.

_Yeah, except you’re dead. Or fake._

“All this stuff looks so cool! What do you want me to do all day? If your workday is anywhere near as long as Dad’s—”

His sentence was interrupted by the sound of Kaiba’s bag hitting one of the tables, startling the boy. He shoots Mokuba a pointed look, pausing to empty all the contents and neatly placing them all on one of the tables.

When he was finally done, he crossed the distance between them to stare down at the younger.

“Assuming you are real; we’re making some ground rules right now.”

Mokuba nodded.

“If you talk to me around people, don’t expect an answer right away. Don’t be obnoxious around other people either, I can’t give you attention when I’m trying to focus on talking to them. Don’t wander off, don’t touch anything unless I say you can, and don’t ever bring up _anything_ that happened before you showed up recently.”

The boy blinked in bafflement.

“That’s a lot of don’ts.”

“Tough.”

Seto yanked open one of the drawers of the worktable and brought out a blueprint and spread it out across the table. Grabbing some of the similar ones he had brought from his bag, he laid them out in specific spots.

“Ooh—is that a plane? Whatcha doin’ with it?”

Kaiba knew he should have added ‘Don’t speak unless spoken to’ in the ground rules.

“A jet,” he corrected, fishing out a white pencil to add in some details from the smaller sheets to the main copy. “It’s made for shooting down others. And speed, of course. I’m designing it, it’s the latest prototype.”

Mokuba’s lips pull into a tense line.

“What’s your job exactly, Nii—Seto?”

Kaiba lets that pass and moves onto writing in the next additions, this time by the engines.

“Is it not obvious?” he asks, somewhat distracted by the long string of numbers he’s copying. “I’m the designer for this company that makes weapons for militaries. Or whoever needs them.”

Mokuba starts to pace around the table, his sneakers scuffing as he walked.

“What’s this place called then?”

“Kaiba Corp—" But before Seto can say more, his phone pings a specific note, and without even having to look at the message he knows who it is, and where he needs to go.

Maybe he should just leave Mokuba here so he’s out of the way. No, that wouldn’t work, there’d be no one watching him, he couldn’t trust him to not get into trouble. And what if he picked anything up and someone else walked in? What would it look like?

“Come on, stay on my heels, and stay quiet.” Kaiba leaves his things in the room, only taking his phone and ID. Ushering the boy out of the room, he locked the electric door behind them.

* * *

Kaiba stood at near attention in front of the empty desk before him. By schedule, he knew it should only be a few minutes he had to wait. But it always felt like an eternity.

It must all be in his head. It must. Seto would never make the mistake of skipping out on sleep to this degree again.

The boy was off to the side, looking through the glass to see the bustling city down below as he bounced on the balls of his feet, chattering about this and that, as he watched people go about their day.

Seto didn’t dare speak or move from his spot in case anyone spotted him.

Eventually, the band-aid was finally ripped off as the door to the office opened behind him.

Seto stood up straighter, if it were even possible, his arms neatly at his side.

“I heard you showed up a bit later than normal,” the man said, coming to stand behind the desk. He dropped a large stack of paperwork down with an audible noise, which made Mokuba jump in his spot as he watched the exchange.

Seto was as still as a statue.

“Just the trains being a tad bit more crowded, that’s all, sir.” Of course, even with that, he had been nowhere near tardy.

Only then did Gozaburo take his seat. Seto wasn’t offered one, but he folded his arms neatly in the small of his back.

Mokuba crept closer to them to watch. But Gozaburo hadn’t commented on him when he came in, so really there was no tangible reason for the boy to be wary.

But Mokuba didn’t trust this man.

“Progress report. Have you implemented those changes? Is your team on schedule?” the man asked as he pulled out some papers from a desk drawer, more of Seto’s diagrams on them.

“Yes sir. There have been no setbacks. Our estimated timetable still has the first prototype to be ready in three months.”

Seto produced his phone from his pocket, and with a few taps, a holographic render of the plane flitted between them. It was a handy additional tool for working at different angles that Seto had invented that teach for. It probably could have become the new standardized system, but Seto didn’t bother putting that much time into it nor was his focus on something as superficial as holograms, so it didn’t.

Gozaburo's eyes scanned over the model. After a moment he fished out one of the sheets from the stack of Seto’s diagrams and pushed it forward on the desk facing the other.

“Why did you scrap this?”

Seto immediately launched into his reasoning, and being so invested in it he didn’t notice Mokuba creeping closer to the desk to peer at the pile of diagrams.

The boy didn’t know what any of them meant of course, but they were his big brother’s work and looked pretty, so he at least wanted to see!

And without much thought about it, he snatched a few of the papers—right off Gozaburo's desk.

“And what about your original landing gear—” But as Gozaburo thumbed through the pile, the one he was looking for was nowhere to be found.

As he shut the hologram off for a moment, Seto finally saw what Mokuba had in his hands. His mouth opened to say something, but if he did, Gozaburo would just raise more questions.

“Where in the…I just had it right here.” The man glances around on the floor, checks the drawer again, nothing.

Mokuba stares frozen in his spot as he glances between the paper in his hands and the man before him growing more aggravated by the second. It was like the object had turned invisible the moment Mokuba touched it.

Kaiba holds back a swear and clears his throat.

“Perhaps it fell out during your meeting, sir?”

Gozaburo lets the suggestion hang for a long moment, and then scoffs. “Perhaps. I’ll have someone look for it later.”

Kaiba doesn’t let his relief show as Mokuba tucks the paper into the pocket of his vest as carefully as a surgeon.

If Gozaburo could see the kid, he would have him tossed out of the building that instant.

“Anyway, everything I scrapped I did so because it went over budget for what’s needed. Of course, it could still be chosen if you’d like, and just considered an investment for the future, but it would be…” he paused to do the mental math, but Gozaburo waved him off.

“Then go ahead and discard it,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“Yes sir. Anything else, sir?”

“That’s all.”

* * *

“Are you trying to get me in trouble!?” Seto snapped once they were back to the secluded hall where the workshop was located.

He grabbed Mokuba by a shoulder and with a sharp movement held out his hand.

“Give that back.”

Mokuba’s expression fell as he fished out the papers and handed them over.

“I was just—”

_“I don’t care.”_

Kaiba neatly folded up the stolen plans and pocketed them. It’d be a nightmare to get these back without Gozaburo noticing.

He was already pacing, strategizing a plan of when Gozaburo’s next meeting was if anyone would be watching the office—

“He didn’t see me though,” Mokuba mumbled.

It made Seto freeze. The last of his denial eroding. Those papers were _there,_ and then they weren’t once Mokuba picked them up. Gozaburo couldn’t see him and couldn’t find the designs.

This wasn’t a hallucination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks so much for reading! Constructive criticism is always welcome! And yes, that holo tech Seto made was what would have become Solid Vision in the canon timeline.
> 
> Now that Seto's accepted the truth let me know your bets if you think Gozaburo will find out that something supernatural is going on or not xD


	3. Stagnant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mokuba's on a mission, and he confronts Seto. Also, sharing a space with your brother after spending 13 years with your own space is an adjustment.

At least the rest of the day had little issue. Seto wasn’t able to find a sneaky moment to replace the papers, that was a headache for another day.

Seto also hadn’t been in a children’s park for over nearly a decade. Mokuba’s feet dragged in the ground as he lazily sat on the swing.

Good thing no one else was here, it’d probably look like an invisible person.

But now they could talk without worrying about people overhearing.

“Nii—Seto… Who is that man? You seemed so…stiff around him. If it weren’t you, I’d say you were scared. Are bosses of companies really that scary and mean? Is it like what M—” But remembering his brother’s ground rules Mokuba cut himself off.

“Yes, he’s my boss,” Kaiba confirmed while trying to look nonchalant, as if he wasn’t talking to an empty swing.

“But he’s also more important than that. He’s my mentor, and became my father after…”

They both knew.

“Oh, I see.” Mokuba kicked a bit of the dirt before he spoke again. “I don’t like him.”

“Few do.” His employees, Seto meant.

“He’s bad.” Mokuba didn’t.

Kaiba folded his arms across his chest and his head tipped forward a fraction.

“Mokuba, he's not some teacher you can badmouth. He’s one of the most powerful men in the world and—"

“He’s bad for _you,”_ Mokuba elaborated. 

His brother fixes Seto with a stare with those big dark eyes that feels like he’s seeing something the elder can’t.

“What happened to you, Seto? You’re like a wind-up toy. I’ve only been watching you for a few days and you look like you march through every day to make those machines, collapse at the end and wind yourself up again for the next day. You’re different.”

Seto’s eyes met his brother’s, unfaltering. Was he really so unrecognizable to his own kin?

“Things change,” he said eventually. “People change. And what the Hell would you even know? You haven’t been here for thirteen years.”

~~You left me.~~

“So it’s been a few years! That doesn’t mean we’re strangers. You used to rush to do all your homework early so you could play whatever the newest game we had gotten no matter what it was. You told me you were gonna make your own one day—”

“I was a kid, Mokuba—stupid shit left my mouth all the time back then!”

The younger shot to his feet, resisting the urge to kick dust as this brother.

“Yeah, so!? Just ‘cause I’m a kid that doesn’t mean everything I say is—”

“You’re _dead!_ It doesn’t matter!”

Someone passing by on the other side of the street perked their head up in the brothers’ direction. Seto scowled. 

“Come on, let’s get out of here before anyone gets more suspicious.”

Mokuba shot a look toward Seto that the elder couldn’t quite make out. It almost felt disapproving. Something was brewing in those eyes. 

“Seto, things could be different.”

Kaiba said nothing as they exited the park. The younger had assumed he’d not heard, or more likely, just chosen to not answer.

But Kaiba knew the clock could not be turned back, no matter how much he’d like it to. There was no point in indulging in what-ifs.

“You lie.”

* * *

As if Kaiba needed further proof, the extra eggs were indeed still gone.

“Why'd you get this place anyway instead of somewhere closer to the company?” 

Just like that, Mokuba had bounced back into being interested in his normal life. Seto figured it must have to do with being a hyper kid.

“I was told living on my own would give me some good experience and a sense of responsibility and independence.” By Gozaburo of course, but he avoided that name.

“Has it?”

“I make meals here, shower, and sleep.”

Mokuba peered behind the TV and stared down the length of the wall.

“No kidding, this thing isn’t even plugged in.” 

Which Mokuba fixed and plopped down on the couch to find a cartoon.

“Oi, whatever you’re watching check the time. Don’t whine when dinner is ready that you didn’t know how long it would last.”

“Yeah yeah,” Mokuba waved off.

With a grumble, Seto got to work. This must have been how—

It wasn’t important.

Whatever show Mokuba had chosen was now on a commercial break. Apparently, there was a tournament coming up for a game that had some young prodigy. How’d kids that age have time for that stuff?

* * *

Another awkward meal later, a problem became quite apparent to the two. Seto lived in a one-bedroom apartment.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have a pullout couch or anything. I think I may have a futon buried in here somewhere…”

Half of Seto was obscured from Mokuba’s view as the elder brother dug around in the closet.

While he was occupied with that Mokuba glanced around the barren bedroom. There was literally only a bed and a nightstand with a notebook on it. Probably more work things.

“Bloody finally,” Kaiba hissed, coming out with an armful of futon.

“Thanks, but why can’t I sleep in your room, Seto?”

But his brother was already passing him.

“You just can’t.”

Despite the answer offering no opening, Mokuba probed anyway. “But why? We used to all the time.”

Kaiba shoved aside the coffee table to make room, making a horrid noise as it moved.

“What did I say about bringing up anything that happened before?”

Mokuba’s mouth snapped shut.

Kaiba went back to preparing the spot and only when the whole thing was rolled out did he realize he never even asked if “ghosts" needed to sleep. He had just gone and done all of this.

“Oi, do you even sleep?”

But before he’d get a sensible answer out of the boy, he’d flopped onto the bed like it was a trampoline.

“I dunno! I never really stopped to try.”

“Well then try really hard and don’t keep me up. If you wake up, pick up a book and keep yourself occupied.”

Before Mokuba could say much more, Seto’s door slammed shut.

“No need to be so stingy about it,” Mokuba muttered.

It didn’t make sense, he and Seto used to sleep in the same room all the time. Sometimes Mokuba even snuck into his brother’s bed when he had a bad dream.

This was worse than he’d thought. If only he could travel back in time and know what had happened since they last saw each other.

But he supposed that was above anyone’s power.

Mokuba just needed to plan. Very carefully. There were only so many moves. He stayed up designing his plan the majority of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me whenever I post a chapter: huh I feel I've barely made a dent in any of the plot I've outlined, but also I can't just leap into things without setting them up : ")
> 
> Somehow I managed to make some time in the void that is classes in order to get this done. (save me : ")
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, constructive criticism is welcomed!


End file.
